He was not shamelessly ducking, he had been retired for awhile before that and maintained he was still retired. If Silva called out Bas Rutten, would Rutten staying retired be ducking? That being said I would love to see Rickson come out of retirement for Saku's last match. Pride should come up with some crazy million dollar, winner takes all final match.

I have no idea when Rickon's son died, and that certainly qualifies as a valid excuse for not fighting, but at least 3 years ago (back when Sakuraba was knocking off Gracies every weekend, but I can't recall exactly when) he was shamelessly ducking Sak's polite requests for a match when they were both on a Japanese talk show together.

Therefore Rickson is responsible for the current state of trans-Atlantic relations and the weakened dollar. And global warming.

3 years ago was about the time his son died

Eduardo "Why'd you stop."

Me "I was kicked in the head by the guys sparring next to me."

Eduardo "Ino what happened but i didnt say you could stop."

Me "Um.. I guess I keep going."

Eduardo "You dont stop until i say stop, you dont get tired until i say your tired, keep going."

Originally posted by Ralek
My cousin gave me some tapes of him doing tkd. I learned from those tapes. When I beat up an Akido instructor, and made him take rest breaks, I used TKD. I learned Bjj from watching ufc and pride and then I copied them and wrestled my cousin for practice. I choked him out and he tapped.

Tyler Durden -- that's not the way I remember it, but it has been a while. That show may have been sometime just after Rickson padded his retirement fund by beating Takada. Anyway, as I recall, Rickson said something along the lines of him just being the fighter, not the manager, so he didn't make the decisions about who to fight next. Which was about as believable then as it would be now.

I get the suspcion that the Gracies just want to use Rickson as their poster child of never being beaten as a way to stroke their ego???? You be the judge.

The thing is how many top fighters have Rickson fought in America where the MMA events has been around longer? How many Silva, Tito Ortiz, Bas Rutten etc have he fought? The martial art scene is a much different place right now than it was ten years ago. Fighters comming out now are alot more well rounded than ever and have boxing, muay thai, wrestling and ground fighting skills etc.

To give an analogy:
Its one thing to fight 500 guys who cant grapple for crap but its another thing to fight 500 guys who can grapple and know how the game is played.

Basically. Like I said, I wouldn't really hold it against Rickson because, yeah, he is pretty old now, but given that he's still being marketed as quite literally The Greatest Grappler Alive Today, and given that his cheif accomplishment in life is fighting ZULU (with his fearsome MMA record of 1-5-0)....well Rickson fucking sucks.

Captain's Log: Just a little update for all my TRUE and HONEST friends out there:

1) I am STRAIGHT! I am STRAIGHT! Get it through your thick skulls, numbskulls!

2) My name is not Ian Brandon Something.

3) Kacey is coming with me now. I have stolen her from the other Christian Weston Chandler.

REMINDER: I am still the one and only true creator of sonichu and rosechu electric hedgehog pokemon

I vote we combine this title and the top thred title in General BS to get "Rickson fights vampires and zombies."

And that's when I figured out that tears couldn't make somebody who was dead alive again. There's another thing to learn about tears, they can't make somebody who doesn't love you any more love you again. It's the same with prayers. I wonder how much of their lives people waste crying and praying to God. If you ask me, the devil makes more sense than God does. I can at least see why people would want him around. It's good to have somebody to blame for the bad stuff they do. Maybe God's there because people get scared of all the bad stuff they do. They figure that God and the Devil are always playing this game of tug-of-war game with them. And they never know which side they're gonna wind up on. I guess that tug-of-war idea explains how sometimes, even when people try to do something good, it still turns out bad.